Mr. Forgettable #Wattys2016

Bonus Chapter: Road Trip

This is a collaboration between PSMalcolm and I. Two characters from her book, Stuck on Vacation with Ryan Rupert, are in this, as well as characters from this book. If you like it, I highly recommend her books. You can find them on her profile.

The car hiccupped, jittering and spluttering as I fiddled with the ignition, a feeling of despair slowly building in my chest. It was freezing— like, way colder than I was used to, and my main concern was getting the heater going on full blast.

A few yards away, Ryan was locking the hotel room, almost completely hidden under a heavy grey coat. He shivered in the light snowfall. Before now, I'd never seen snow myself, but Ryan had, and had luckily forewarned me that my knit hoodies and yoga pants weren't going to make the cut for this kind of weather. Though it still felt as if we'd spent the night in a frozen ice cube.

I tried the car once more, and when it refused to start, I groaned with frustration and banged my hands on the wheel. Ryan propped the car door open, having seen my frustration.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Something is wrong with the car. How are we going to make it to Markusville?"

Ryan frowned and leaned into the car to examine everything— like that was going to be helpful. I shivered, rubbing my arms.

"You're letting all the cold air in," I said finally. I didn't want to complain. He was trying to help. But... I just hated the cold.

"Let me jump in and try. You take the keys back to reception," he suggested, handing over a set of tiny silver keys. I nodded, shuffling out of the seat, the keys clutched in my hand, and marched hurriedly through the thin snow layer covering the ground towards the main office building.

I was immediately thankful to enter the welcoming warmth of the office. The lady graciously accepted the keys when I handed them over and wished us a pleasant drive. Which it had been so far. We'd left Tallahassee early morning yesterday, driven seven hours to Nashville and stopped for a coffee break, then continued on for another five hours and stopped at St. Louis for the night. It had been such an awesome experience to pack up for a few days, hit the road with just each other's company over the winter break, see some beautiful new scenery and head somewhere a bit more exciting than our hometown.

Or, at least, that's what I'd thought until now. I had no idea it would be this cold, and it wasn't even snowing hard!

Heading back out into the cold was possibly the worst decision I'd ever made, and I found myself truly questioning whether I cared enough for adventure to endure this torturous weather much longer. Luckily, my thoughts didn't last long, as the car suddenly roared to life. Ryan revved it a few times, but our car was purring away like nothing had even happened. Ryan flashed a smug grin my way and I couldn't help but smile. I was so happy that the car had started.

Racing to the passenger side I jumped in and relished in the slowly forming warmth.

"How did you get it to start?" I asked him, genuinely curious. He shrugged.

"Persistence," was his reply. I couldn't help but frown a little.

"Persistence? You mean we were lucky it started? You didn't find the problem?"

"Relax, Aubs," he said smoothly, taking my hand in his as he began to back out of the lot. "The car probably just wasn't used to the cold and needed to warm up a bit. There's nothing to worry about."